Bomberman Ultra

Rating Everyone Genre action Publisher Hudson Soft External Links

The Bomberman franchise has seen nearly eighty different iterations since its debut way back in the NES days. Name a platform, and there’s been at least one outing with the white helmeted bomber dude released for it. The Playstation 3 recently joined that list with the release of Bomberman Ultra for download on the Playstation Network.

In case, somehow, you’ve managed to never play a Bomberman game in the past, Bomberman Ultra is a two-dimensional classic arcade game. Each player controls his or her own avatar on a large chess-like board. Obstacles are distributed across the board, blocking the player’s path. These, though, can be destroyed, along with the other players, with bombs, which the player is lucky enough to have plenty of. Be the last one standing, and guess what? You win!

The game play hasn’t taken any large deviations from the normal formula, which was smart. It holds up well, and can be picked up quickly, but there’s also a lot of nuance that can be learned with extended play. Learning strategies for trapping players is very satisfying. Of course, this is all dependent upon the multiplayer experience. Playing the game alone, I’d imagine, would get very old, very fast.

There are some changes, though, to provide a little more depth of gameplay. There are all sorts of extras to be found and earned, allowing more and more customization of your avatar, along with different obstacles and gimmicks for different boards. All together, though, this game is really all about the online experience, which is well laid out, but can be a little burdensome to navigate. Otherwise, the game looks and plays pretty much like you’d expect.

Bomberman isn’t for everyone. The casual gamer will pick it up easily, but there’s little fun to be had unless you can dig into the multiplayer, which is much better if you have other players in the room with you. It’s an old-school game without a lot of the bells and whistles of the bigger releases, and it’s not impressive visually. That being said, there’s a reason the franchise has been such a classic, and it’s that, in the right circumstances, it’s both addictive and fun. It’s certainly worth taking a look at the demo.